Bluebird Rising

by John Decure

  Therese commented on the afternoon’s beauty. Perfect earthquake weather, I said without thinking. No one disagreed; the big shakers always seem to rattle our world on pristine days.

  We had stopped to wait at the signal just across the street from the restaurant. I asked Therese the name of the lawyer who’d represented Silver before Turnbull had subbed in at trial. Tad Rizzo, she said. I shuddered when she said the name. Tad Rizzo, known by his many dear friends at the bar as “Ratzo,” was a bottom feeder of the first order, a lazy, whiny obstructionist who loved to drag out settlement discussions and go to trial on loser cases just to inflate his fees. A guy whose monthly ad in California Lawyer magazine posed the crass, rhetorical question “Why Pay More?” (The obvious answer is that you get what you pay for.)

  Here was Silver, upgrading from Ratzo Rizzo to Roger Turnbull in a single day. Like doing zero to sixty in three seconds flat. Then making a stink about it after the hearing. It just didn’t make sense.

  The light changed and we made our way across Eleventh and into the restaurant, which was beginning to empty out at this hour. A very dark waiter who nodded too much came and took our orders, then went away. Therese and I sat directly opposite each other, eating flat bread and finger-painting the beads of sweat on our ice waters. Dale sat back and rested his eyes. We rehashed the hearing a bit more, then tired of the subject and began to talk movies, sports teams, and that ultimate evergreen L.A. topic: traffic. Just before the waiter brought a sizzling tray of kabobs to our table, Therese took a breath.

  “Tell me about yourself, J.”

  “Not much to tell,” I said, conscious of her intense gaze and enjoying it, I must admit. But by the time the nodding waiter slipped us the check, it was as if that oath I’d taken in Wachter’s court had kicked in again, for I was deep into a description of Carmen.

  Carmen is, well, striking, which became apparent the first time I saw her. She was at work, a computer screen lighting her face, fingers twisting phone cord as she gave directions, a stack of paperwork staring up at her from her crowded little desk inside the children’s court building in East L.A., calmly providing information on the classes that Las Palomas, her employer, offered to address any and all manner of deficient parenting. I had waited as she smiled her way through the endless flow of aftercourt drop-ins she received from many of society’s more accomplished fuckups. Knock, knock, who’s there? Child molesters, addicts, wife beaters, kid beaters, mental cases, each one gripping a signed court order and a defensive attitude, saying, I do not want to be here, lady, I do not need or deserve this shit, okay? Each one departed the Las Palomas office ten minutes later just as cynical, but maybe a tad more hopeful than before. Some of them even thanked this young woman that had looked into their hangdog eyes and somehow located in them a certain dignity that even they had forgotten was there. Carmen is trained as a social worker, but her gift is her ability to make you believe that you alone are unique, even special.

  I, too, was at work the day we first met. I’d been short a Spanish-speaking interpreter on a case, my last of the afternoon. The court had assigned me to represent a father who spoke little English and punished his kids with a flick of his cigarette lighter on a trembling open palm. At the time I considered it rotten luck, bogging down like this on my final case. That was during my third year representing wayward parents in dependency court, and by then I was pretty sick of the whole damned thing. I remember that day as a rough one, how badly I wanted to snag an interpreter, do the hearing, flee the building, and tear back down the freeway to Christianitos and the sea. But the interpreters’ office was empty.

  I was stuck. There was nothing to do but slide back down to the courtroom and sit around and rot while my afternoon died a slow death. But just as I started back toward the elevators, I heard a young woman’s honeyed voice emanating from an open door a few yards down the deserted hallway. Stopping, staggered by indecision, I remember feeling sorry for myself, lamenting my situation. But what the hell, I thought, maybe I can ask the honey-voiced woman if she’s seen or heard anything about the vacant interpreters’ office not thirty feet away. It was worth a try. I walked to the open door and went inside.

  Lucky me.

  The eye contact between Therese and me waned a bit after I told her about Carmen. Therese offered nothing in return about her personal life when I was through talking about mine. I didn’t push it, knowing that if it were not for Carmen, I’d be on Therese like a suction cup. Some women have that certain something, a feminine magic that can wreck a man, steal the words from his tongue, turn his brain to runny oatmeal. Carmen possessed a warehouse full of that magic. No doubt Therese Rozypal had some in store as well, but I could scarcely recall the impression she had made on me as a new hire. Not much of one, at any rate, just that of a quiet, conservatively dressed young attorney with a rather uptight hairstyle and a goofy picture of a Girl Scout and Richard Nixon on her desk.

  We left the restaurant and crossed the street again, both of us content to walk back to the bar offices with Dale in the middle, like a human firewall. I wished I could tell Therese I’d underestimated her, that she had that something very special, how it was too bad our timing was off, how … Right—not in this lifetime could I say anything of the sort. All I could do was compliment her, colleague to colleague, on the fine job she’d done on the Silver matter, and leave it at that. So I did. We walked on, and when Therese thanked me for the kind words, her eyes were fixed on something down the block, well away from me. Nobody’s fool.

  It’s funny, I was thinking, how attraction can turn on and off like a faucet. Funny, and terrifying.

  Dale hung out quietly in my office the rest of the afternoon while I read the investigative file on another new case due for filing. Just before five the phone rang. Tamango Perry, the Glendale police detective, was calling me from his car on a mobile phone, his voice rattled. He started and stopped a few times, as if he was distracted.

  “Everything okay, Detective?” I asked.

  “Yes, sorry … well, no, not really.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I am at the site of a homicide. Gang related.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m upset about it.”

  I waited.

  “A newspaper boy on his bicycle route was wearing a San Francisco 49ers jacket,” he said, “red being the favored color of a rival gang. Shot dead, left in a gutter, and for what? Wearing the wrong color on the wrong street of some dump of a neighborhood not even worth fighting for, let alone dying for.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I’m very sorry.”

  “No, I am,” Tamango said. “I am sorry and I shouldn’t go on about it. Sometimes it gets to me.”

  “Must be hard.”

  “Yes.”

  A siren rolled by in the background. I wanted to break the silence but didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know why he had called.

  “I’ll be here awhile,” he said, “taking statements and writing it up. But I wanted to let you know, on my way over here I came down Brand, went by the Lo-Cost Law Center. I stopped by earlier today, late morning, but they were closed up. Odd to be closed like that, you know, midday. No one was answering the phone either. I thought maybe they figured the situation with you and Mr. Bleeker was trouble for the operation. Maybe they closed up shop and moved on.”

  “I see.” I didn’t like the sound of that. If they were gone already it would be much harder to trace the cases they’d handled using Dale’s name. He could be on the hook for months as new complaints from jilted clients trickled in one by one.

  “But when I drove by a little while ago on my way here, I saw a light on. Hard to tell, I was speeding through traffic, but I thought I saw someone inside.”

  “Want us to meet you there?”

  “Who is ‘us’?”

  I told him Dale was with me.

  “Yes, perfect. I’d like you there when I question them. If Mr. Bleeker is there, we can ask to see thei
r files without a warrant, since he is their staff lawyer.”

  “Figuratively, Detective,” I said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  I’d not yet met Tamango Perry in person, but I liked the fairminded approach he seemed to take to his work.

  “We’ll be there. Might take half an hour at least from downtown, with evening traffic.”

  “Try taking Broadway up to San Fernando Road.”

  “I know the way.” It’s a nice no-freeway route that cuts north through Chinatown, then jogs left along the L.A. River bed.

  “And please, Mr. Shepard, wait for me. Don’t go in until I come over. This is a police investigation at this point.”

  “I understand.”

  Dale was out of his chair by the time the receiver hit the cradle. I told him what the detective had seen as I shut off my computer. “Outstanding,” he said. “Let’s get this thing resolved.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up too high. They may be gone before we get there. We gotta boogie.” I grabbed my jacket and turned out the lights.

  My phone rang. Dale and I exchanged a frozen glance standing in the doorway. “Might be the detective again,” I said. I picked up the call.

  “J., glad I caught you.”

  I winced. “Tell me, what can I do you out of, Eloise?”

  “Very funny. I heard you testified on rebuttal in a reinstatement this morning. Heard you were quite effective.”

  Her tone was level but had that usual pinprick twinge of challenge in it. I turned my back from the door and gazed out the big windows at a patch of sky the color of malt liquor fading in the twilight.

  “That’s nice of Therese to say, but—”

  “Who said anything about Therese? I heard it from Judge Wachter.”

  Great. The judge had already called to complain.

  “Oh.”

  “We need to talk,” Eloise said.

  I imagined the self-satisfied smile on her face. Nothing seemed to bring more pleasure to Eloise than having something on you.

  “We’re talking,” I said.

  “In person.”

  “We will, first thing tomorrow, okay?”

  “Now!” she shot back. “My office, now! Got it?”

  I felt like chains were snapping inside me, something I’d held back a long time finally busting loose.

  “Don’t shout at me again,” I said, straining for calm. “I won’t stand for it.” Silence. “It’s the end of the day,” I went on, “and I’m on my way out to an appointment.”

  “You listen—”

  “I said I will see you first thing tomorrow.”

  “I told you … to get down here now. N–O–double–U.” Her voice quaking a little through the spelling. “Your job depends upon it, Mr. Shepard. Understand?”

  Fuck this, I thought, this is wrong and it has to stop.

  “Don’t threaten me, Ms. Horton, it’s a mistake. I have rights as an employee. Keep it up and my next meeting isn’t going to be with you, it’ll be with a union steward, then the chief. Do you understand that?”

  Christ, what a hollow counterthreat. Our employee union was best known for a long history of befuddled contract negotiations and unjustifiably steep mandatory member dues, not for fighting tough labor disputes with management. And the last time I’d spoken with the chief was at last year’s Christmas party, about three seconds’ worth in the buffet line. Something like, “Hey, try that jalapeño dip, it’s got quite a kick.” God knows I had no special in with Reginald Hewitt, none whatsoever. But Eloise didn’t counter me.

  “Are you openly defying me?” she said at last.

  I looked at the digital clock radio on my desk. “My clock reads five-oh-one,” I said, fudging by a few minutes. “Standard business hours are over. You can look it up in the bar manual.”

  She snorted like a bull. “Don’t you get smart with me, Shepard.”

  “I will see you in the morning. Nine o’clock. Your office.” I hung up the phone before she could respond. “Let’s bail,” I said to Dale.

  His smile was small and reserved. “Back door?” Already hip to my evasion tactics from his previous visit to my office.

  “Definitely.”

  I grabbed my briefcase, said a hasty good night to Honey Chavez, and we headed out fast.

  No one was waiting at the rear elevators when we got there. “Yeah, I’m a back door man,” I crooned in a low voice, heart still thudding in my throat from the exchange with my boss. “I’m a back doe-arr maaayannn.” The old blues classic helped me decompress a little. She can’t fire me, I told myself, I haven’t done anything wrong. Maybe a transfer to another unit would be good for both of us. Maybe …

  “I’m a back door man,” Dale piped in. He seemed dialed in to my apprehension. “I’m a back doe-arr maaayannnn.”

  I appreciated the gesture.

  “Well, da men don’t know,” we sang in unison. Just then the elevator doors swung open, a crowd of stoic faces, all eyes suddenly upon us as we shared a quick grin that said hey, what the f———. “But da little girls under-staaannnnd.”

  Bodies parted, people making all kinds of room for us. Dale frowned as we stepped in and took our places. I was reminded that he was homeless and unemployed, by now quite used to being greeted with silence and cold stares. But they were looking at me the same way. Hell, I was thinking, it wasn’t that bad.

  No, I knew it wasn’t the mediocre singing.

  The doors pinched shut four inches from my face. Unseen mechanisms creaked and whirred inside the elevator shaft. I stared straight into my hazy reflection in the stainless steel, pulse quick, green eyes unblinking. We descended to the lobby in silence.

  Dale sings with me because he knows, I thought. This is just how it is when you’re desperate. Saner folks can smell it on you.

  The Glendale Lo-Cost Law Center sign on the brick facade was dark, as was the reception area, but a lone light shone from the back room. I idled on Brand Boulevard in the northbound lane outside the office, waiting to cut across and park. No one seemed to be inside the law center, at least no one we could see from the front. The print shop next door was closed for the day, as was the nail salon. The flow of oncoming traffic finally slowed and I swung my Jeep wagon into a space a few doors up the street, by the Cuban bakery. No sign of Tamango Perry yet.

  “What now?” Dale said.

  “We wait.”

  “I’m hungry. That kabob at lunch was fine and all, but it went down like an appetizer.”

  “Amen. You can’t spear a full meal with an oversize toothpick.”

  We’d both been polite about our puny servings, since Therese was buying and had insisted on ordering for us. But Dale and I were both probably twice her weight. Our plates were clean before she finished her cucumber salad and reached for the main course.

  “This place sure smells like heaven,” Dale said, his window half down. The bakery looked devoid of customers. A bald guy in a white apron was mopping the black-and-white squares of tile near the glass counters stacked high with pastries. The chrome stools were balanced on top of one another to one side, like a row of miniature radio towers.

  “This place knows how to make a Cuban sandwich,” I said. “They toast the bread in this special press.”

  “Lead the way.”

  We got out. Night had fallen, so I didn’t bother to feed the parking meter.

  Dale stopped me on the sidewalk. “J., check it out.” Pointing to the law center. “I think someone turned off the lights.”

  Through the glass, the front room did appear darker than it had been just a moment before. Strange shadows flickered in the background. We forgot our sandwiches and walked closer.

  “Jesus!” Dale cried.

  The back room was on fire, a black cloud of smoke smothering the light from a lone ceiling bulb as it spilled into the reception area. I ran to the front door and shook it, but it was locked. Then I ran to the bakery and shouted at the guy mopping the floor to call 911. That sh
ocked the hell out of a swarthy woman seated behind the register, and she dropped a stack of bills she’d been counting and picked up the phone as if it was the thing that was burning. When I got back outside, Dale was in the street, craning for a view of the structure’s rooftop. No flames were visible, but the night sky just above the store was starting to pulse with an orange light.

  “That doesn’t look promising,” I said.

  Black smoke began to snake out of a silver turbine on the roof. “Or that,” Dale said. “What now?”

  “We wait, I guess,” I said.

  Dale looked at the asphalt, then at me. “I mean, what now about me? You know, my situation. What if the fire department doesn’t get here before all those client files with my name on them go up in smoke?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Well, you don’t want to see innocent people be put out by losing their files forever.”

  “Course not.”

  “But I’m not exactly inclined to dash in there to get them out. Most likely the people running this place already burned a lot of people, no pun intended. At least their clients will go elsewhere from now on.”

  “I’m happy with this vantage point, then. You?”

  A wisp of burning ashes arced up against the dark sky.

  “Ecstatic.”

  Somewhere in the distance the sounds of sirens whispered at us. Above the Cuban store, a young man in a tight white tee appeared, yanking hard on his end of what looked like a garden hose and yelling, “Vámos, vámos!” until a burst of water shot forth. We stood in the street as the law center burned, watching the man hose down the bakery’s roof like he was watering a front lawn.